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Bridesmaids

7. BRIDESMAIDS

Director: Paul FeigStars: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Hamm, Wendi McLendon-Covey
Understandably, all of the press surrounding Bridesmaids has harped on the box office smash’s “women first” motif, hailing it as the genesis of dirty all-female comedy. You know, evidence that the estrogen set can exist in the same funny universe as Seth Rogen and his foul-mouthed chums. In hindsight, though, all of the gender-based praise seems reductive; Bridesmaids, co-written by and starring Saturday Night Live queen Kristen Wiig, is just flat-out funny, despite its stars mutual DNA makeup.

Produced by the ubiquitous Judd Apatow, Wiig’s breakthrough project hits the same tonal sweet spot as Apatow’s best productions (The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up), that of tender character moments punctuated with potty-minded hilarity. The flaws are at times glaring (wasted side characters, sequences that go on too long a la SNL sketches), yet director Paul Feig (creator of Freaks & Geeks) pulls such winning performances from all involved, and Wiig is such an inspired lead, that Bridesmaids overcomes its faults through pure amiability. And, yes, we just wrote an entire Bridesmaids blurb without pairing the words “chick” and “flick.” Dig on that.

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